Newberry Dollar Zone At Newmarket South To Liquidate

Storefront

January 30, 2002|By SARAH SUE INGRAM Daily Press

A few months ago, President Bush asked the children of America to send in $1 apiece for the children of Afghanistan. He got the idea from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who decades before asked American children to send in a dime.

Maybe we should have figured this out before now, but the dollar store has replaced the five-and-dime.

A Newport News store that opened as a five-and-dime -- and then became a dollar store -- is going out of business: Newberry Dollar Zone in Newmarket South Shopping Center.

The store is between the new Food Lion and Simply Fashions, across the shopping center from The Dump.

The five-and-dime was called G.C. Murphy's when it opened there in 1958, said current store manager Cheryl Park.

It had a lunch counter in the back of the store.

"You could buy a float and a burger for $2.99," Park said.

Co-worker Susie Johnson remembered, "They had the best banana splits in the world."

A popcorn machine just inside the front door made it nearly impossible to resist buying a bag, they both said.

Johnson has worked at Newberry for 17 years. Park has been with the company since 1989 and store manager since 1996.

Millie Ochletree, who was hired there in 1962, retired in October.

Johnson and Park are among the eight employees who will lose their jobs. Parent company McCrory Corp. in York, Penn., is closing all 200 stores.

No date has been set for closing the one here, though the liquidator guessed it would be near the end of February.

Park also will look for new employment. There's plenty of merchandise still in the store, marked down.

Then the building will be empty.

PILOT ABANDONED. By mutual agreement, Blockbuster and RadioShack have ended their store-within-a-store pilot program they introduced last June.

A scaled-down RadioShack occupied a section inside 130 Blockbuster stores. RadioShack started pulling its mini-stores out of Blockbuster earlier this month.

"We had an excellent working relationship with RadioShack, but the business model that was set up wasn't giving the best returns to either party," said Randy Hargrove, spokesman for Blockbuster.

"From our perspective, it was a success. It was a low-risk way of finding out the right mix of selling consumer electronics in the future."

RadioShack, however, had to pay for store employees' salaries and for the licensed space before making enough sales to make its part of the concept profitable.

Blockbuster was selling some consumer electronics before it entered into the deal with RadioShack. The store sold DVD players as a fourth-quarter promotion in 2001, and sales exceeded expectations.

Blockbuster will try to introduce sales of more home-entertainment electronics later this year.

Blockbuster is based in Dallas and RadioShack in Fort Worth.

TO THE EXTREME. Virginia Sports Inc. has moved from Poquoson to York County and changed its trading name to South 51.

The store is an authorized dealer for WRVs (wave-riding vehicles). It sells surfing equipment, including surfboards and wakeboards, along with surf and swim apparel for men and women. The store also features paintball and skateboard merchandise.

"We're more or less like an extreme sports store," said owner Bryan Britt. Store officials opted for South 51 because, "We wanted a little bit sportier name," Britt said.

The store's professional-grade skateboards cost from $75 to $150. The new location is 1215 George Washington Highway next to County Grill in the Kiln Creek Shopping Center. The store's new phone number is 595-2694.

HOME-MADE ICE CREAM. Sometime in March, Bruster's Old Fashion Ice Cream & Yogurt will open at 5289 John Tyler Highway in the Williamsburg Crossing Shopping Center.

The 1,000-square-foot store -- with walk-up service only -- will feature 24 flavors of ice cream, with a mix of Italian ice, frozen yogurt and sherbet.

"It's all made right there in the store," said Tom Samson, who owns and will operate the business with his wife, Sandy.

"My wife and I thought this would be a great thing to do for this side of town," said Samson, who spent 21 years in the corporate world of sales and marketing before deciding to open his own business.

Tom favors the mint chocolate chip, though banana ice cream is not far behind. Sandy's favorite is coffee, with chocolate turtle a close second.

The Williamsburg location will be the fifth in Virginia. There are two Bruster's in Richmond, one in Roanoke and one in Virginia Beach.

When it opens, the Williamsburg Bruster's will operate from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with extended hours in the summer. The store's phone number will be 220-8930.

Sarah Sue Ingram can be reached at 247-4767 or by e-mail at ssingram@dailypress.com